


Never to Mind Sherlock Holmes

by Annilie



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:20:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28215354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annilie/pseuds/Annilie
Summary: Someone is using Doctor Watson against his dear friend. But Mycroft Holmes is watching! Together with Inspector Lestrade he's ready to make a stand against the doctor, seemingly indifferent to what Sherlock might have to say for himself.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

It had become a particular long day before John Watson could call it a day and leave his practice. He had resolved to go visit Sherlock Holmes but the cold outside and the weariness in his bones fought that idea very wildly right now. 

After a short while he decided to postpone his visit. He was sure Holmes wouldn’t mind, if he had been expecting him at all. Watson considered that for a moment. He had taken it for granted he could keep walking in and out at their old apartments as he had done when he actually lived there.  
But after leaving, was he not supposed to at least give a proper warning when he wanted to call on Holmes, like any other visitor? Holmes had never indicated to be disturbed by the way things were. Neither had Mrs Hudson for that matter, but she would adapt to any wishes of her tenant so that didn’t really count.

Where did it all leave him? 

Without his knowledge the thoughts had made the good doctor doubting his relationship with Sherlock Holmes and the influence of their friendship on his marriage. 

The next evening there were much less patients and Watson had no excuse to postpone a visit to 221B Bakerstreet tonight. The sudden insight that was what he had been planning all day -postponing seeing Holmes – he stopped in his tracks while turning the key in the lock.  
Why, he kept asking himself. Why had he hoped it would be to late again, like the previous evening?  
He wanted to see, Holmes right? There had been nothing or nobody that had made him intending to go and see his old friend but paying a social call, like old friends did.  
He had just wanted it. 

Why then did he not do so tonight?

Would Holmes care? Had his friend been waiting the past week whether or not he would come? Did he ever come over to visit him and Mary?  
No. So why should he bother with whether or not to visit Holmes?

***  
As it was, at the exact moment Watson was convincing himself he should not mind Holmes at all, Mycroft Holmes got a disturbing telephone call from Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard.

“Are you sure, inspector?” was the first he said before the inspector had even mentioned his name. 

“Positive, Mr. Holmes. The residue you brought us to examine was indeed the drug you mentioned. Which leads us to the conclusion that Doctor Watson was under influence when he attacked your brother.”

The eldest Holmes-brother nodded gravely. “I suspected as much. Feared it, actually, for how will my brother react? He might hate us, inspector. He and I have never been particulary close or anything, but knowing my brother to hate me, in favor of the man who attacked him, probably with the intention to kill… There’s only so much one can bear- can deal with, at one time.” 

The lapse didn’t escape the Inspector. 

Accordingly he offered: “The most important thing is your brother is safe and well.” 

Mycroft nodded. “For now, Inspector. It doesn’t change anything about my intentions, though. Sherlock is coming with me and I don’t want Watson to come anywhere near him. Or me, for that matter, if he wants to walk away again.”

“Mr. Holmes, I trust you won’t do anything rash? Scotland Yard will take this up. Your brother is resourceful, he won’t be beaten by the likes of the doctor.”

“No, but the one who is using the doctor might be another thing entirely.”


	2. Chapter 2

Mary Watson knew something was wrong with her husband.  
When she tried to make him speak about it, he withdrew. Any subject that could lead anywhere to crime and so to Sherlock Holmes was evaded, blocked off or simply ignored.  
She didn’t understand. 

Neither was she the only one confused.

Mrs Hudson too knew something was amiss. It was nothing strange for Mr Holmes to stay away days and nights on end, nor was the long absence of Doctor Watson. After all, for all she knew, they might have gone on some chase after criminals together they stumbled into by accident.  
Sherlock Holmes wasn’t a man to stumble but when it came to crime, it sometimes seemed every single crime came stumbling over him.  
What was strange was the severe order from Mr Holmes’s brother no one was to be let into the appartement, least of all Doctor Watson. When she asked why, he had only answered: “For my brother’s sake.”  
She didn’t doubt a second to obey the order, after all, her Mr Holmes would have it no other way. Whatever was going on, the brothers were into it together and so whatever had prompted this strange request, she trusted it to be genuine.  
What she did not trust was the implication that Mr Holmes was holding back things from the doctor again, for that could mean he was into something dangerous. Again. 

And this she did not like. At all.

***

It was near nightfall when Lestrade was disturbed by a knock on the door. He was still in his office, to great protest from his wife, on request ,of Mycroft Holmes, who had wished to stay as well. He had convinced Lestrade to order Doctor Watson to be kept under surveillance for at least 48 hours.

Mycroft Holmes had been seemingly asleep as he seemed to be most of the time, but he was on his feet before Lestrade’s “Come in!” had left his mouth.

“Any news?”

The young constable, who was a great admirer of Sherlock Holmes was definitely overwhelmed by the sudden and remarkable meeting with the older Holmes-brother. He stammered something, found back his voice while Mycroft started to speak and reported: “Doctor Watson has been home all evening, sir.”

Lestrade nodded but Mycroft wasn’t satisfied.  
“Did you see someone else?”

“No, sir.”  
“Are there any other entrances to the house?”

“One, at the back of the house, but we have that one covered as well. Nobody went in or out.”

“What about his wife?”

“What about her?” asked Lestrade. The young constable had thrown a glance at him as to ask when this interrogation was really necessary.

“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”

“Well, she didn’t leave this evening”, the constable offered. 

Mycroft nodded and waved the constable away, turning to Lestrade. “Something is wrong, Inspector.”

“I really don’t believe Doctor Watson would do such a thing, he’s a doctor! And with Sherlock Holmes, of all people… Watson is the person closest to Holmes in the whole world, if you forgive me for saying so.”

“No, you are quite right, Inspector. But there is the empty bottle and the residue on Sherlock’s lips when we found him.”

“Which doesn’t mean he actually got some of it into his system, that he actually swallowed it. Let alone that it was Doctor Watson who gave it to him. Your brother would be the first to point that out.”

“Quite right. I wonder…” Mycroft frowned, contemplating something.

Lestrade waited, sharing, without knowing it, the same thought. 

Had Sherlock Holmes simulated a poisoning and if so, why?

But no, that was to much for Lestrade. Why would Holmes try to frame Watson?! Or allow the third party Mycroft had mentioned to do so, using him in the process?

Mycroft seemed to have reached the same conclusion. He shook his head and stroked his hair. They were on the wrong track, entirely. But what was it Holmes always said? Once you have ruled out all other possibilities, that which remains, how improbable, must be the truth.

But even then, both possibilities were not just improbable, they were impossible: or Watson had attacked and poisoned Holmes or Holmes was framing Watson.

None of them could be brought to do such a thing.

Unless one or both their lives or the British Empire were threatened, and not even then. Holmes would fight for the Greater Good, determined to not let Crime win out. And Watson would make sacrifices for any deserving patient.

But would they sacrifice each other? Would they trade or gamble each other’s life?

Lestrade’d like to answer that with a no but honesty made him to mentally shrug his shoulders.

They might. For the Greater Good.

***

John Watson sat on his settee, watching his wife. At one point she turned around to tell him to stop staring at her. She opened her mouth and closed it again when she saw the expression on his face. Empty, glassy eyes were staring at her without actually seeing her. His thoughts were someplace far away.  
Watson was thinking about Sherlock Holmes again.

He couldn’t help it. 

He was angry.

Furious.

Hurting.

Confused. That was the worst. If he hadn’t been so confused he could have let it go.

But he was. And he couldn’t.

They had faced the greatest criminal since Moriarty’s death. 

He and Holmes had been having one of their innocent banters until loud screaming had had them alarmed and Holmes had jumped out of the carriage. There was a big fight going on as there were plenty a day everywhere in the city. 

Watson couldn’t remember much of it because not sooner had they got there or a drunk bastard had knocked him out. When he woke up, he sat on his knees next to Holmes, who was unconscious, smearing something on his lips. 

The next thing he remembered were footsteps on the stairs and someone who screamed: “Let me see my brother!”  
At the moment he hadn’t recognized Mycroft’s voice. It was only because Holmes was speaking the name that Watson knew who had entered the room, grabbed him and yanked him aside to take his place next to Holmes.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock was unaware of all that was going on around him. He was put to bed in a spare chamber in the Diogenes Club and mildly sedated to keep him from putting up a fight against the arrangement. 

As it happened the room looked exactly like the room where Mycroft had found his brother on the floor with Doctor Watson bending over him. 

After he, Mycroft, had put Sherlock there himself, some lousy excuse for a journalist had claimed. 

Mycroft angrily drank the last of the coffee Lestrade had offered him when the scoundrel was brought in, under protest of the chief editor of the paper. He avoided the sight of the beggar at the door of the police station until two constables had put the journalist into one of the interrogation rooms and Lestrade and a colleague had followed him inside.

The beggar had been waiting for him. As soon as Mycroft was near enough he grasped the beggar’s filthy excuse for a shirt and almost yanked him inside, out of the sight of passers-by or members of Scotland Yard. 

“Are you insane?!”

Sherlock Holmes grinned, freeing himself out of his brother’s steel grip. “Always a pleasure to see you to, Mycroft.” His face was pale but his eyes ware glittering, with fever as much as tension.

“What if someone recognises you?”

Sherlock shrugged. “What of it? Besides, who could recognise me? Whole London believes I’m lying in a bed in a hidden room in the Diogenes Club, guarded better than the Crown Jewels. You underestimate the blindness and the power of both gossip and the intelligent public opinion. Besides, it took you already three seconds after walking past me.”

Mycroft ignored the little stab in the eternal rivalry and only real bond, apart from their blood, he shared with his brother. “What are you doing here?”

“Bored. Want me to take this instead?” He retrieved the good old bottle and syringe out of the pocket of what was left of the beggar’s coat.

“How did you get that, anyway?” He motioned at Sherlock, indicating the coat. As he expected, however, Sherlock choose to taunt him a bit more and answered: “Why, I don’t know where our parents found this body for me or why they have chosen it in the first place. Imagine, they chose the body of a pretty little girl instead. You know, great blue eyes, blond here in two ponytails, held together with blue ribbon…”

Mycroft bore the tantrum for a little while before sharply cutting it off, repeating his question why Sherlock had followed him here, to Scotland Yard of all places.  
“I must admit I’m also curious, if not dying, to know two things”, Sherlock answered.

“Please, enlighten me.”

“First I wanted to know who was writing those fantastical stories in the papers. The one that appeared this morning I found particularly amusing.” Mycroft didn’t take the bait and kept a straight face. Unaware of indifferent to it, Sherlock went on: “Many of those stories are actually quit good, I dare say. Not as good as Watson’s, I presume but still smaller a loss of time than many printed stuff these days.”

“And the second reason?”

“I wanted to know who dared to challenge so powerful a man as yourself." 

Sherlock said it with clear mockery. Mycroft rolled his eyes. “Well, you know it now. Go back to the Diogenes Club.”

“Why the haste, brother? Afraid I’ll discover something you’d me rather not to know?” He slapped his hand before his mouth in mock shock. “It is not true, is it, what Mr. Harris wrote?”

Mycroft ignored the statement. He was occupied by the glance in Sherlock’s eyes. All his gaiety and the mockery where all a façade to hide the pain and confusion. Watson’s betrayal had hurt him. Sherlock wasn’t a person to care much for people, let alone to have his feelings hurt because of such care. And still here he was, acting joy and happiness because inside he was torn apart as a piece of paper and he didn’t know how to handle the emotions other than hiding his torment.

Mycroft knew Sherlock was not to be pushed out as long as he had unfinished business and so he spared himself the pain of trying. 

“I hope you didn’t have me make Lestrade arresting that good-for-nothing for nothing.”

“No, Mycroft. He can tell us exactly what happened.”

Mycroft looked at his brother, sighed inwardly but nodded. “Oké, Sherlock, I’ll trust you on this one.” 

Sherlock nodded with the faintest of smiles. He walked past Mycroft towards the room in where Harris and the two detectives had disappeared. Mycroft took his arm. “What are you going to do if Watson is involved and any drugs are not?”

“Then, I’m afraid, I will be facing one of the rare cases in my career that have ever left me speechless.”

“I’d be happy to live to see that happen”, Mycroft murmured, causing Sherlock who had already proceeded to the door of the interrogation room, to grin.  
“Watch and learn”, he said, resuming his mocking and joyous demeanor, before knocking on the door.


End file.
